I met Candace Robb when she was touring with her first book, The Apothecary Rose, in 1993. She has since written 10 Owen Archer books, three Margaret Kerr books, and is now writing the Kate Clifford books set in 15th-century York. With each one she approaches history via a unique character, in Kate’s case, she is a widow with adopted children who is working to pay off her dead husband’s debts and stay afloat amongst the political intrigue that was a huge part of her time. And watch out—she has a throwing axe in her skirt!

How did you come up with Kate Clifford? She's one of those characters that fully springs to life from page one—and she has such an interesting backstory as well.

Kate Clifford arrived in my life in a daydream, striding down Stonegate flanked by a pair of Irish wolfhounds, the tops of their heads level with her shoulders. I sensed the axe hidden in her skirts, saw wild dark hair escaping from her crispinette. She turned left onto High Petergate and stopped at a well-appointed house where an elderly woman greeted her as her mistress. How could I resist this vivid glimpse that left me asking, Who is she? I wrote The Service of the Dead to learn her story, then A Twisted Vengeance to tease out her mother’s tragedy.

And how about her cook, Berend? I know he's a favorite with readers (and with me). I liked that this new book fleshed him out more but I sense there's even more to know about him.

Berend’s arrival was more typical for me—he simply appeared in a scene, battle-scarred, muscular, kneading bread. I laughed and thought, He’s perfect for Kate’s household, and kept on typing. But by the end of the second book, I realized his depths, and could not resist testing them in A Murdered Peace, which feels very much to me like Berend’s book. The more I wrote, the more intrigued I became, and I cannot predict how the rest of his story might play out. He broke my heart as he broke Kate’s. Not that she can’t find joy, but he was far more important to her as a comrade than as a potential lover.

Are you a dog person? I love Lille and Ghent, who are incredibly well trained. I know you are nothing if not an ace researcher, so how did you research the dogs and their training?

I’m an animal lover, and engage dog walkers in conversations about their wonderful companions, but my partner is strictly a cat person. Fortunately, one of my good friends is a canine expert, currently training law enforcement departments in her state about dealing with canines on both sides of the law: how to read them, how to calm them, etc. She spent hours on the phone with me explaining the differences in training and behavior between scent dogs—like many hounds, and coursing dogs—such as Lille and Ghent, who are Irish wolfhounds. We discussed what the dogs were likely to do in a variety of situations, and she often sent me links to videos backing up her explanations. I also had hands-on experience with Irish wolfhounds early on, when my cat’s veterinarian connected me with a couple in my neighborhood who live with a pair of Irish wolfhounds. They were wonderful about inviting me to visit. Sadly they’ve moved out into the country—but it’s a great move for the dogs.

The history of this book was new to me! I didn't know King Henry took over and imprisoned King Richard. Can you set up the historical background a little bit for readers?

The very short version: King Richard II banishes his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, from the realm, but assures Henry that when his father, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster dies, he will inherit the Lancastrian title. Upon Gaunt’s death, Richard breaks that promise, parceling out Henry’s inheritance to his supporters (he has become an unpopular king, especially among the powerful barons who expect him to cheat them as they have his cousin.) Henry takes advantage of Richard’s Irish campaign, when the king and the bulk of his army are in Ireland. He returns to England to claim his inheritance, landing in Yorkshire. The nobles not involved in the Irish campaign rise in support of Henry. As he crosses the country to confront Richard he collects a great army, which is perhaps what convinces Henry to reach further than the dukedom and take the crown from his cousin. He captures Richard, spins a tale of Richard willingly abdicating, and imprisons his cousin in Pontefract Castle. When some of Richard’s loyal followers try to rescue him, Henry realizes his throne will never be secure while his cousin lives. The timing of Richard’s death is still debated, but his corpse showed no signs of physical trauma. Henry claimed his cousin starved himself to death.

When you sit down to write a book, what's foremost in your mind? Do the characters and situations spring from your research? Do you come up with a story first?

Yes to all, at various times. The book I’m currently writing was inspired by a particular character, but as it’s the 12th in a series I immediately considered how it would fit in, what year it was in the series, and what was going on in history at that time that provided a background and perhaps even a motivation. And as I collected all this, the story began to grow and branch out in my mind. The 11th Owen Archer (A Conspiracy of Wolves), out next year, carried the burden of reviving a series, but the backstory of the book has been in my head for several years. As I mentioned above, The Service of the Dead began with Kate striding into my daydream.

I was interested in the last book by the Beguines, who are also in this book to a lesser extent. Can you talk about them a bit? So much of the history you share with readers is not as well known as some bits of well-covered history, a real strength of your novels.

Thank you! That’s one of the things I love about writing a historical crime series—rather than needing to provide a broad historical backdrop I can focus on more specific incidents or trends. The Beguines were part of a wider movement of lay devotion in the Low Countries. What was unique about the Beguines is that the communities were not endowed convents for cloistered women but were more in the spirit of women’s collectives who supported themselves by working outside or within their communal houses as healers, teachers, even weavers and sempsters. In many Beguine communities women could leave, perhaps marrying and having children, and then return when their families were mature. This very flexibility was controversial. The church tolerated them as long as they were “guided” by male confessors (priests, abbots, bishops).

You have been in the game for a long time now with several different series and different publishers. What have you learned in your long career about writing? About the book business? How has it changed since The Apothecary Rose was published in 1993?

Lessons about writing: Writing begets writing. If I don’t want to dry up, I must keep at it. When the characters start rebelling, pay attention. Never, ever force them to adhere to a “plan.” I prefer writing historical mysteries to writing historical novels that are, essentially, fictional biographies, because I like to play God with my main characters. I found it too frustrating to have no control over the fates of Alice Perrers (The King’s Mistress) or Joan of Kent (A Triple Knot).

The book business has changed so much I wouldn’t know where to begin. Once upon a time publishers sent authors on book tours, planned and financed by them, even if they weren’t celebrities or already mega-sellers. A new writer could quit her day job and focus on writing. Now, even when published by one of the Big Five [Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster], much of the marketing burden is on the writer. And we’re expected to engage with our readers in between books with social media. Fortunately I enjoy having more engagement throughout the year with my readers. It’s fun to share “medieval news” with them on Facebook, and Twitter helps me keep up with historians around the world, as well as fellow authors and readers.

I know Owen Archer is returning—yay! Can you fill readers in on Owen and his return?

I am delighted to be working with Severn House for the new Owen Archer mysteries—the first (11th in the series), A Conspiracy of Wolves, will be published in the UK in hardcover in April 2019, then in the US in August 2019. I’m working on the next.

And finally, can you name a book that was transformational for you? One that set you on your reading and/or writing path?

One? Too difficult! But I can name a cluster. Katherine, by Anya Seton, and Cecelia Holland’s The Firedrake, The Kings in Winter, Antichrist, and The Earl were revelations for me. They proved it was possible to write and successfully publish historical novels that focused on the history and culture rather than on whether or not the hero and heroine would have sex and live happily ever after. Although Katherine is a famous love story, it does not end happily, and there is much suffering and unpleasant but fascinating detail throughout.

The author who most inspired me to write was Ursula K. LeGuin. Her fiction was—is!—heartfelt and yet deeply anthropological, a wondrous combination. And it was during a workshop with Ursula that she suggested I shift from fantasy to historical fiction, that therein lay my unique talent. The rest is history! (Sorry, old joke.)

Candace Robb is a historian with a focus on 14th century Britain and historical crime fiction. She is the author behind the Owen Archer mysteries, the Margaret Kerr trilogy, and the Kate Clifford mysteries set in 15th century York. Under the pen name Emma Campion, she also authors historical novels about intriguing women from King Edward III's court.

Laurie Loewenstein’s Death of a Rainmaker: A Dust Bowl Mystery takes us on a trip back in time to the not-so-good old days in Oklahoma, when the dust storms were so fierce they could kill anyone outside when they hit, and caused babies to die of “dust pneumonia.” The first sentence lets you know what you’re in for: “There is no man more hopeful than a farmer, who wakes each morning to the vagaries of a heifer gone off her feed, seed that doesn’t take, a late spring, an early autumn, too much rain, or, worst of all, no rain at all, and still climbs out of bed and pulls up his overalls.” In Dust Bowl Oklahoma, the farmers even had to attend the auctioning off of the farm they’d tilled so faithfully over the years. Accordingly, that’s how this wrenching novel begins, with a farm being lost to a combination of bad weather and greedy bankers. Hoping to stave off the inevitable, the farmers of Jackson County have hired a man who professes to be a rainmaker, desperately hoping that he will summon up the rains that will save their livelihoods, and in some cases, even their lives. But Ronald Coombs, the purported rainmaker, is a fraud. Not only does rain not come after he bombards the sky with TNT, but his efforts seemingly bring about the worst dust storm in Dust Bowl history. Later, when Coombs is found murdered in a sand drift, no one is surprised. The plot is solid in Death of a Rainmaker, but what makes Loewenstein’s novel so outstanding is the cast of characters she has assembled. Bankrupt farmers lead the list, but right behind them are the jobless men in the nearby “hobo” encampment. The fair-minded sheriff Temple Jennings, and his compassionate wife Etha are wonderful, too, as is the blind owner of the town’s movie house, and the doctor torn between reporting severe spousal abuse and keeping his patient’s secrets. The author’s powers of description come to the fore when Sheriff Jennings is caught in a dust storm and has to find shelter in the home of a farmer he will be forced to evict. These are all characters we care about, people who, although experiencing hard times, still manage to scrape together a few pennies to escape with Hollywood films starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and newsreels featuring local hero Will Rogers. Death of a Rainmaker is a superb book, one that sets the reader right down amid some of the hardest times our country has faced, and lets us feel those hopeful farmers’ despair as they witness their dreams turning to dust.

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At the Scene

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Mystery Miscellany

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In his Edgar-winning thriller The Long and Faraway Road, Lou Berney mined actual crimes from his Oklahoma childhood. In November Road the plot arcs off of a historical act that looms large within the national psyche—the assassination of JFK—to tell the deftly written story of two disparate characters who hit the road, trying to flee their respective pasts. They ultimately become travel companions, with a professional killer on their trail.

Seemingly slick Frank Guidry, a New Orleans-based fixer for mobster Carlos Marcello, recognizes he’s in danger as soon as he hears about the JFK takedown. For it was Guidry who, on assignment, went to Dallas to leave a sky blue Eldorado parked just two blocks from Dealey Plaza. Because the Kennedy brothers were sworn enemies of Marcello, Guidry realizes that the Eldorado was in fact the getaway car for JFK’s assassin, which makes Guidry a loose end that must be tied up. So Guidry takes flight. (JFK assassination scholars will recognize Marcello as one of the leading actual suspects in the JFK whodunit roll call.)

Simultaneously, an Oklahoma housewife named Charlotte decides to bail on her dead-end marriage to a boozer. With $900, two young daughters, and a dog named Lucky, she sets out for California.

The story unfolds in the third person, but Guidry is such a self-assured writer that he’s easily able to convey the characters’ differences within the narrative style. The sections devoted to Guidry are breezy and hip. Charlotte’s story unfolds more formally. The two approaches meet and mingle, with effective subtlety, when the characters hook up.

Car problems lead to Charlotte’s encounter with Guidry, who has assumed a false identity as an insurance salesman—the better to convince her to travel with him. And the better to elude any would-be hired guns. (Who would suspect a family man of consorting with mobsters?)

The ensuing road trip takes in Route 66, the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest, tunes of the day played over AM radio, and roadside meals of Vienna sausages and crackers. Along with capturing the spirit of early ’60s travel, the book astutely utilizes real locales. In New Orleans’ French Quarter, Guidry is a regular at the Napoleon House and the famed rotating Carousel Bar at the Hotel Monteleone. Real people, including Las Vegas gangster-businessman Moe Dalitz, and performer Ray Bolger (the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz), put in appearances.

But it’s Berney’s central characters, including the chilling Paul Barone, the killer assigned to take out Guidry, who are most compelling. Even the kids have their moments—though I balked at the epilogue, which finds them, as adults, reminiscing about their past. It’s so unnecessary that I advise you to stop reading at the end of the previous chapter, which has a poetic climax involving an unknown killer.

Post Script: Hollywood—which loves road trips—is taking Berney’s book for a spin. Rights have been acquired by Lawrence Kasdan (writer-director of 80s-era movies including The Big Chill and Body Heat, and a writer of some of the Star Wars films). He plans to write and direct a November Road screen version.

Though Detective Chief Superintendent Simon Serrailler survived a near-fatal attack in his last outing The Soul of Discretion (2014), he’s far from out of the woods at the start of The Comforts of Home. Adjusting to a catastrophic injury and the idea that he might not be able to return to his former life and career, he moves temporarily to a remote Scottish island where the bleak and stormy landscape seems to mirror his own emotions.

While recuperating, Serrailler is pulled into the murder of a woman who lived on the island, while also being kept busy on a cold case provided by his boss, Chief Constable Kieron Bright. He is also dealing with the fact that his sister, Cat, and Bright recently married, and that his father, from whom he is somewhat estranged, has recently come back into his life.

Both the pacing and the setting enhance this story, which starts out slowly as Serrailler adjusts to his injuries and picks up speed as he returns to full strength. Other characters, such as the mother of the daughter at the center of the cold case, and the man who is believed to have murdered her, weave in and out of the main storyline, adding more detail and allowing the reader a better understanding of the challenges facing the detective. Everything finally comes to a head as Serrailler returns to his home city of Lafferton, where a number of arsons and the case that he has been investigating collide.

While the characters are strong and the setting is spot-on, it does take some patience to wait for Serrailler to get to work, and fans of dramatic action may not find what they’re looking for here. Having come so close to death, Serrailler must first face his own demons, and there’s no rushing the journey back.

There couldn’t be a more apt title for this historical mystery, which revolves around the hunt for a serial killer who poses his victims as deposed English kings, alarming those who would protect the country’s newly crowned ruler, Edward VII. This includes Lady Emily Hargreaves and her husband, Colin, who work feverishly to try to identify the killer while also trying to unravel the story behind a mysterious note handed to Colin by Edward VII’s mother, Queen Victoria, as she lay dying.

Despite being part of a long-running series, readers will find that it is easy to step right into Emily and Colin’s world, even if they haven’t read the earlier books. A large part of the charm of the story lies in the relationship between the couple, which is refreshingly modern compared to their more repressed counterparts in the Victorian era. Lady Emily is well ahead of her time, following clues wherever they take her, including to London’s seedier side. With an expert eye for detail, author Tasha Alexander does a superb job of depicting not only the different facets of the city, but the chasm between the upper and lower classes.

Emily and Colin’s story is intertwined with chapters following the relationship of another couple, William and Cecily Hargrave. In service to King Henry in the 1400s, their marriage began the Hargrave/Hargreaves’ line, and it is interesting to see the parallels between the more “modern” couple and that of their ancestors. Service to country and king is a thread that runs throughout the story, and it is this sacred duty, passed down through generations, that finally reveals the purpose behind Queen Victoria’s request.

As Emily and Colin enter the Edwardian age, there’s no doubt that faithful readers will want to follow them.

In Russell Hill’s The Egret a grieving father takes vengeance on the hit-and-run driver who left his daughter to die. This father, never named in the book, begins stalking the uber-rich and conscienceless Earl Anthony Winslow. As the tension escalates, so do the attempts on Winslow’s life, moving up from a gunshot to a poisonous snake bite to a Molotov cocktail, and even to a hastily assembled IED. Although the book is deadly serious, this escalation of violence is faintly reminiscent of Wile E. Coyote’s constant attempts to kill the Road Runner. Winslow somehow survives everything the grieving father throws at him, although several bystanders aren’t as fortunate. The father sees himself as an egret: patient and deadly. Finally confronting his daughter’s killer, he says, “There’s a bird that is a stalker. It moves silently and when it finds the thing it wants to eat, it remains motionless until the thing is right where it wants it and then it strikes. Right now I have you right where I want you.” It isn’t the final act of revenge itself that makes this 161-page novella so fascinating, it’s the look deep
 inside the mind and soul of a man who compares himself to a bird. Author Russell Hill likes birds. He is best known for the magical realism of The Lord God Bird, in which two teens taking refuge in the Great Dismal Swamp encounter a bird long thought to be extinct. In that book, Hill visualized the ivory-billed woodpecker as ecology’s bellwether: learn or die. In this deftly handled novel, an egret delivers a lesson on how to kill.